Berkana Blog

An Authentic Call

Many years ago I wrote a short piece on the Authentic Call and I was reminded of that recently when someone asked me if I was interested in calling a new training into our community. This was actually a quite logical ask, as I seem to be a serial caller of things (initiatives, organizations, trainings, academies, etc.). It once again made me ponder the nature of the true authentic call, which I distinguish from just deciding to organize something. I remember writing back to the person that it seemed to me that they were the one feeling the real itch for the training and that they were likely the ones to realize this possibility more than if I took it up for them.

It seems to me that a true call, an authentic call, typically shows up first as a (disturbance, an itch, a longing) in one person. My sense is that this is true even when it might seem like it started from a group of people. I think if you examine it closely someone felt it first or at least chose to articulate it first. It could be true that in a group, once it is voiced, it quickly becomes so resonant that it then becomes hard to distinguish it as having come from one person.

My sense also is that when someone feels that longing and voices it to others and they then begin to feel a similar longing or it elevates an already existing longing to the point of greater consciousness, it is not that the first longing becomes irrelevant but that the new collective longing has the more of the nature of the collective than the original disturbance. This can be hard for the first caller but is often an important next step in the realization of a call if that call requires a core group to make it come true.

So why is any of this relevant? I think that the original caller, the one who first articulated the longing, plays a critical role in the actualization of the possibility. They are the original fire starter and need to tend that flame while at the same time letting go into the collective so that the flame has a chance to ignite into something far larger. If they hold it too tight they can squash the flame and any possibility of it becoming something and if they let go to soon the flame may extinguish because it wasn’t tended long enough. I believe the flame must become simultaneously my flame and never my flame (my flame and our flame at the same time). Like quantum phenomena that exist as both matter and wave at the same time so it is the nature of the authentic call.

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Comments (1)

Diana Oleskevich on April 18, 2016 at 2:11 am

YES! an authentic call is both one’s own and collectively ours! I particularly resonate with being asked to do “something” task or organizing that’s off my inner radar and ego feels honored of course while noticing it’s not my authentic call…I try to wait and listen a bit before responding, give the request time to simmer and hear if it’s mine authentically or a gift to share, pass back or pay forward…